Deep Green Resistance is a movement majorly influenced by indigenous peoples’ ways– it’s a movement to stop the fast forward motion of the human destruction of nature. Animals aren’t causing climate change, fish aren’t making the tides rise, it’s people. And more specifically, it’s the institutionalized, governmentalized machinery invented by people doing the damage. DGR gets a bad rap by many because at the core of their mana’o, patriarchy is something to be dismantled, along with the capitalist train it rode in on. But DGR really frightens people because they hold a Malcolm X, “By Any Means Necessary” position. Of course, that’s me presenting the skinny– DGR speaks for itself and I suggest people read up on their mission.

This post is about something that came across the DGR News Service today, a post about a kid named Amanda Todd. It’s what I admire about DGR movement in general: they look beyond the surface and examine the systems that are informing and shaping events. I’m sharing this post because it’s a thoughtful analysis of the politics and culture that played a role in the how and why a 15-year old girl was cyber-bullied to death.

Beautiful Justice: The Life and Death of Amanda Todd

by DGR News Service

By Ben Barker / Deep Green Resistance Wisconsin

“Hello! I’ve decided to tell you about my never ending story.” These were the words written on the first two flashcards that 15-year old Amanda Todd shows viewers in the silent video she created about two months before she recently committed suicide to escape social torture.

Anti-bullying posters hang in every public school across the United States, yet kids continue to harass and hurt each other without intervention. Every school day, 150,000 students stay home out of fear of being picked on. Bullying has become epidemic, but still is only a symptom of the broader culture in which it exists. Despite even the most earnest efforts, youth problems and school problems cannot be solved until social problems and cultural problems are.

Amanda Todd is dead not only because she was born into this culture of bullying, but because she was born into it with a female body. Her flashcards continued: “In 7th grade I would go with friends on webcam meet and talk to new people. Then got called stunning, beautiful, perfect, etc. Then wanted me to flash. So I did. 1 year later I got a msg on facebook from him. Don’t know how he knew me. It said if you don’t put on a show for me I will send ur boobs. He knew my address, school, relatives, friends, family names. Christmas break. Knock at my door at 4am. It was the police. My photo was sent to everyone. I then got really sick and got anxiety, major depression, and panic disorder.”

While tragic to be sure, Amanda’s case is but one among countless more that lead girls and women first to crippling depression and then to their deaths. ( go here to read the rest of “Beautiful Justice” http://dgrnewsservice.org/author/dgrnews/ )